Srinagar, May 1 -- I'll never forget the day I carried a single bag of rice from my car to my house. It was just one bag, but its weight pressed hard on my shoulders.

I'm no stranger to the world of labour. I work with the Department of Food and Civil Supplies, where I see workers handle thousands of quintals of grain with nothing but their hands and grit.

But that day, something shifted. That bag wasn't just rice. It was a window into lives I'd seen but never truly understood.

As I heaved it up, faces flashed through my mind: labourers I've passed by, their backs bent under loads far heavier than mine, their eyes steady with resolve. These are the people who carry our world. They hoist electric poles to light our homes, sow seeds to f...